10.1 Overview of the Profile Service API

Oracle WebLogic Server SIP Container includes a profile service API, com.bea.wcp.profile.API, that may have multiple profile service provider implementations. A profile provider performs the work of accessing XML documents from a data repository using a defined protocol. Deployed SIP Servlets and other applications need not understand the underlying protocol or the data repository in which the document is stored; they simply reference profile data using a custom URL, and Oracle WebLogic Server SIP Container delegates the request processing to the correct profile provider.

The provider performs the necessary protocol operations for manipulating the document. All providers work with documents in XML DOM format, so client code can work with many different types of profile data in a common way.

Clients that want to use a profile provider obtain a profile service instance through a Servlet context attribute. They then construct an appropriate URL and use that URL with one of the available Profile Service API methods to work with profile data. The contents of the URL, combined with the configuration of profile providers, determines the provider implementation that Oracle WebLogic Server SIP Container to process the client's requests.

The sections that follow describe how to implement the profile service API interfaces in a custom profile provider.

10.2 Implementing Profile Service API Methods

A custom profile provider is implemented as a shared Java EE library (typically a simple JAR file) deployed to the engine tier cluster. The provider JAR file must include, at minimum, a class that implements com.bea.wcp.profile.ProfileServiceSpi. This interface inherits methods from com.bea.wcp.profile.ProfileService and defines new methods that are called during provider registration and unregistration.

In addition to the provider implementation, you must implement the com.bea.wcp.profile.ProfileSubscription interface if your provider supports subscription-based notification of profile data updates. A ProfileSubscription is returned to the client subscriber when the profile document is modified.

The putDocument, getDocument, and deleteDocument methods each have two distinct method signatures. The basic version of a method passes only the document selector on which to operate. The alternate method signature also passes the address of the sender of the request for protocols that require explicit information about the requestor.

The subscribe method has multiple method signatures to allow passing the sender's address, as well as for supporting time-based subscriptions.

If you do not want to implement a method in com.bea.wcp.profile.ProfileServiceSpi, include a "no-op" method implementation that throws the OperationNotSupportedException.

com.bea.wcp.profile.ProfileServiceSpi defines provider methods that are called during registration and unregistration. Providers can create connections to data stores or perform any required initializing in the register method. The register method also supplies a ProviderBean instance, which includes any context parameters configured in the provider's configuration elements in profile.xml.

Providers must release any backing store connections, and clean up any state that they maintain, in the unregister method.

10.3 Configuring and Packaging Profile Providers

Providers must be deployed as a shared Java EE library, because all other deployed applications must be able to access the implementation.

For most profile providers, you can simply package the implementation classes in a JAR file. Then register the library with Oracle WebLogic Server SIP Container.

After installing the provider as a library, you must also identify the provider class as a provider in a profile.xml file. The name element uniquely identifies a provider configuration, and the class element identifies the Java class that implements the profile service API interfaces. One or more context parameters can also be defined for the provider, which are delivered to the implementation class in the register method. For example, context parameters might be used to identify backing stores to use for retrieving profile data.

Example 10-1 shows a sample configuration for a provider that accesses data using XCAP.

10.3.1 Mapping Profile Requests to Profile Providers

When an application makes a request using the Profile Service API, Oracle WebLogic Server SIP Container must find a corresponding provider to process the request. By default, Oracle WebLogic Server SIP Container maps the prefix of the requested URL to a provider name element defined in profile.xml. For example, with the basic configuration shown in Example 10-1, Oracle WebLogic Server SIP Container would map Profile Service API requests beginning with xcap:// to the provider class com.mycompany.profile.XcapProfileProvider.

Alternately, you can define a mapping entry in profile.xml that lists the prefixes corresponding to each named provider. Example 10-2 shows a mapping with two alternate prefixes.

If the explicit mapping capabilities of profile.xml are insufficient, you can create a custom mapping class that implements the com.bea.wcp.profile.ProfileRouter interface, and then identify that class in the map-by-router element. Example 10-3 shows an example configuration.